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by Sena Jeter Naslund
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Harper Perennial (2005-08-01)
ISBN: 0060838744
EAN: 9780060838744
Dewy Decimal #: 813
Paperback: 704 pages
Release Date: 2005-08-02
SKU: 092708031
Condition: Used: Acceptable
Comments: ...no markings or highlighting...lots of creases, ruffled pages
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
From the opening line -- "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last" -- you will know that you are in the hands of a master storyteller and in the company of a fascinating woman hero. Inspired by a brief passage in Moby-Dick, Sena Jeter Naslund has created an enthralling and compellingly readable saga, spanning a rich, eventful, and dramatic life. At once a family drama, a romantic adventure, and a portrait of a real and loving marriage, Ahab's Wife gives new perspective on the American experience. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
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Amazon.com Review
It has been said that one can see farther only by standing on the shoulders of giants. Ahab's Wife, Sena Naslund's epic work of historical fiction, honors that aphorism, using Herman Melville's Moby-Dick as looking glass into early-19th-century America. Through the eye of an outsider, a woman, she suggests that New England life was broader and richer than Melville's manly world of men, ships, and whales. This ambitious novel pays tribute to Melville, creating heroines from his lesser characters, and to America's literary heritage in general. Una, named for the heroine of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, flees to the New England coast from Kentucky to escape her father's puritanism and to pursue a more exalted life. She gets whaling out of her system early: going to sea at 16 disguised as a boy, Una has her ship sunk by her own monstrous whale, and survives a harrowing shipwreck: I was so horrified by the whale's deliberate charge that I could not move. Then my own name flew up from below like a spear: "Una!" Giles' voice broke my trance, and I scrambled down the rigging. No sooner did my foot touch the deck than there was such a lurch that I fell to my face. I heard and felt the boards break below the waterline, the copper sheathing nothing but decorative foil. The whole ship shuddered. A death throe. The ship dies, but Una returns to land to pursue the life of the mind. The novel's opening line--"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last"--also diminishes Melville's hero in the broader scheme of things. Naslund exposes the reader to the unsung, real-life heroes of Melville's world, including Margaret Fuller and her Boston salon, and Nantucket astronomer Maria Mitchell. There is a chance meeting with a veiled Nathaniel Hawthorne in the woods, and throughout the novel the story brims with references to the giants of literature: Shakespeare, Goethe, Coleridge, Keats, and Wordsworth. Although her novel runs long at nearly 700 pages, Naslund has created an imaginative, entertaining, and very impressive work. --Ted Leventhal
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Customer Reviews
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Great writer, average story
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-10-24
I really like Sena Jeter-Naslund's writing. Her prose can be very thought provoking and poetic. I did however, have trouble with the overwrought plot that went on too long by about 300 pages. That's why I did not give this book 4 or 5 stars. The other problem I had was Una's narrative was too eloquent in places for this young woman who was not formally educated. I also had trouble with the contrivances of meeting Emerson and Hawthorne via Ms. Fuller. I did however, like the relationship between Ms. Fuller and Una.
I also liked the build up between Kit and Giles in the beginning although I thought the opening exposition, which lasted 85 pages was laborious before I felt the story really began.
I found the natural progression of the love Una and Ahab had for one another to be very believable, but the relationship with her third husband, Robben the sculptor was uninteresting to me and anti-climatic.
In sum, Ms. Jeter-Naslund is a wonderful writer. If her original manuscript of 1,000 pages had been trimmed to 400, I think I would have loved this book even more.
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Modernity Amidst History: Or, Please Lord Not Again
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-10-23
This book was a gorgeously written, lyrical saga, no doubt. However, I was extremely disappointed by this book. All of the major characters aren't products of their time, but in spite of their time. Men and women from every walk of life, educated or uneducated, are extremely liberal and freethinking, not just for the time, but for today! No one bats an eye at feminism, strong and intelligent women, homosexuality, mixed-race heritage, a couple living together without marrying, and of course all are abolitionists. I'm not saying I don't agree with this viewpoint, but that it is absolutely unbelievable that no major character bats an eye at ANY of these ideas that modern people often find so hard to swallow. (Except one, but he's quickly converted.) Even Una's father, a fundamentalist Christian, is fundamentalist in a modern sense, not a historical one. Also, Una has no flaws, and so although this is the story of her growth to adulthood, I find her largely unchanged (despite the author's claim of her spiritual revelations). Although I like Una, I didn't feel that she followed the sort of character arc that would define a realistic character.
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Help! I'm reading "Ahab's Wife" and I can't ....
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-08-07
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
seem to finish it! I couldn't figure out what was wrong with this book until I decided to check out some of the one * reviews. I have just slogged up to the part when she marries "Crazy Kit" and from what everyone else says it gets worse??? I am not one to put down a book unfinished but I fear this will be one of them (the other one was Toni Morrison's "Beloved"....one of the pretentious selections from "Oprah's Book Club") I can't justify wasting my time on this book!
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I too, wanted to like this book
Rating (1)
Date: 2008-08-04
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I was never a fan of Moby Dick but, having been an English major, I am very familiar with it. When I began reading the book, I was pretty excited to have found an interesting take on the original story. B ut then, the plot deviated, and deviated, and deviated. There are just too many plot twists and she "accidentally" meets just too many famous 19th century "luminaries." I must say the most contrived one situation was when she "happened" to me Hawthorne in the woods surrounding Walden Pond--and he was wearinga black veil no less! Naslund has him leaving a meeting of noted Transcendentalist thinkers...too bad Hawthorne was Anti-transcendentalist! I finished the bookhoping that Naslund might salvage it but, once again she went too far. Una and Ishmael, the man named afterthe Biblical liar? I am beginning to think Naslund needs to change her nom de plume to Ishmael. It'd make her book easier to swallow.
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a bit too long, but a beautiful book nontheless
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-07-17
0 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
As my title suggests, I found the book to be too long, but that said I loved it. Una was a great character who I found to be thought provoking, real (most of the time) and strong. I did find some of the plot twists unbelievable, but I loved the book overall which is why I can only give my review 4 stars instead of 5.
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by Samrat Upadhyay
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Mariner Books (2001-08-02)
ISBN: 0618043713
EAN: 9780618043712
UPC: 046442043717
Dewy Decimal #: 823.92
Paperback: 192 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 102808025
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: name written on first page...some moderate edge wear
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
From the first Nepali author writing in English to be published in the West, Arresting God in Kathmandu brilliantly explores the nature of desire and spirituality in a changing society. With the assurance and unsentimental wisdom of a long-established writer, Upadhyay records the echoes of modernization throughout love and family. Here are husbands and wives bound together by arranged marriages but sometimes driven elsewhere by an intense desire for connection and transcendence. In a city where gods are omnipresent, where privacy is elusive and family defines identity, these men and women find themselves at the mercy of their desires but at the will of their society. Psychologically rich and astonishingly acute, Arresting God in Kathmandu introduces a potent new voice in contemporary fiction.
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Customer Reviews
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Good story-telling, even if somewhat simplistic
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-11-14
The first three stories (chapters) were very engaging and quite enjoyable. By the sixth and seventh story - though each was different - it felt too familiar. Not necessarily predictable, but too much the same as before. The final story switching to first-person was strange and jarring at first, but by the end of the book seemed to "work". The book is definitely entertaining and makes Kathmandu and other areas of Nepal "come alive" even for those of us who have never been there.
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not the best but keeps moving
Rating  (2)
Date: 2004-02-26
1 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Though this book exlpores the changing face of Nepal as other readers have suggested I thought most stories weren't especially real. The stories did not really sink in. In contrast I would definitely recommend his other book "The guru of love". The short stories chug along but in fits and starts and don't seem too close to home. It seemed as if the the subject of sexual attraction was not delved into correctly. The characters seem to have the sexual attraction all of a sudden rather than transitioning smoothly over time and over the course of the story itself.The author seems rushed to finish his story in some cases.
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Excellent book
Rating  (5)
Date: 2003-05-09
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
This collection of short stories explores the nature of desire and attraction in a changing society avoiding the excesses of many writers in this area. The stories are well-written and the characters are memorable. I look forward to reading his novel, and I highly recommend this collection.
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wonderful stories and ideas
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-02-08
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
really enjoyed this slim volume of short stories and can't wait to read his first novel. A gifted writer in the tradition of Rohinton Mistry and all the other wonderful and talented Indian writers --and now I have been somewhat exposed to Nepal's culture as well...I highly recommend this book
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Sensitve and Alive
Rating (5)
Date: 2002-08-06
7 out of 7 customers found this reveiw helpful
Having finished Samrat Upadhyay's, Arresting God in Kathmandu, I am listening to Patsy Cline and wishing his next book was already published. I was touched by Samrat Upadhyay's sensitivity and insight into a wide range of emotions from very different character perspectives. I read in an editorial review that if one is wanting an excursion into spirituality that they will be dissapointed. Not so. Samrat Upadhyay captures the true spirituality of everyday suffering and joy without forcing it on the reader. I look forward to Guru of Love in January.
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by Samrat Upadhyay
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Mariner Books (2001-08-02)
ISBN: 0618043713
EAN: 9780618043712
UPC: 046442043717
Dewy Decimal #: 823.92
Paperback: 192 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 102808025
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: name written on first page...some moderate edge wear
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
From the first Nepali author writing in English to be published in the West, Arresting God in Kathmandu brilliantly explores the nature of desire and spirituality in a changing society. With the assurance and unsentimental wisdom of a long-established writer, Upadhyay records the echoes of modernization throughout love and family. Here are husbands and wives bound together by arranged marriages but sometimes driven elsewhere by an intense desire for connection and transcendence. In a city where gods are omnipresent, where privacy is elusive and family defines identity, these men and women find themselves at the mercy of their desires but at the will of their society. Psychologically rich and astonishingly acute, Arresting God in Kathmandu introduces a potent new voice in contemporary fiction.
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Customer Reviews
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Good story-telling, even if somewhat simplistic
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-11-14
The first three stories (chapters) were very engaging and quite enjoyable. By the sixth and seventh story - though each was different - it felt too familiar. Not necessarily predictable, but too much the same as before. The final story switching to first-person was strange and jarring at first, but by the end of the book seemed to "work". The book is definitely entertaining and makes Kathmandu and other areas of Nepal "come alive" even for those of us who have never been there.
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not the best but keeps moving
Rating (2)
Date: 2004-02-26
1 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Though this book exlpores the changing face of Nepal as other readers have suggested I thought most stories weren't especially real. The stories did not really sink in. In contrast I would definitely recommend his other book "The guru of love". The short stories chug along but in fits and starts and don't seem too close to home. It seemed as if the the subject of sexual attraction was not delved into correctly. The characters seem to have the sexual attraction all of a sudden rather than transitioning smoothly over time and over the course of the story itself.The author seems rushed to finish his story in some cases.
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Excellent book
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-05-09
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
This collection of short stories explores the nature of desire and attraction in a changing society avoiding the excesses of many writers in this area. The stories are well-written and the characters are memorable. I look forward to reading his novel, and I highly recommend this collection.
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wonderful stories and ideas
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-02-08
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
really enjoyed this slim volume of short stories and can't wait to read his first novel. A gifted writer in the tradition of Rohinton Mistry and all the other wonderful and talented Indian writers --and now I have been somewhat exposed to Nepal's culture as well...I highly recommend this book
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Sensitve and Alive
Rating (5)
Date: 2002-08-06
7 out of 7 customers found this reveiw helpful
Having finished Samrat Upadhyay's, Arresting God in Kathmandu, I am listening to Patsy Cline and wishing his next book was already published. I was touched by Samrat Upadhyay's sensitivity and insight into a wide range of emotions from very different character perspectives. I read in an editorial review that if one is wanting an excursion into spirituality that they will be dissapointed. Not so. Samrat Upadhyay captures the true spirituality of everyday suffering and joy without forcing it on the reader. I look forward to Guru of Love in January.
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by Barbara Ras
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (1998-04-01)
ISBN: 0807122645
EAN: 9780807122648
Dewy Decimal #: 811.54
Paperback: 88 pages
SKU: 090108020
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: personal greeting and autograph...minor wear on cover
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Winner of the 1997 Walt Whitman Award of The Academy of American Poets, Given in Memory of Eric Mathieu King "This is a splendid book, morally serious, poetically authentic, spiritually discerning."-C. K. Williams, from his judge's citation for the 1997 Walt Whitman Award Barbara Ras, a poet exquisitely heedful of nuance both physical and visceral, cinches deserved renown with this prize-winning debut collection. Bite Every Sorrow invites the reader to embrace beauty, loss, outrage, and the world in all its particular heartbreaks and hilarities, because, as Ras asks, "What's life without the details?" Her ability to tap the ordinary and draw forth profundity is brilliantly displayed in "You Can't Have It All:" But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled Whether honoring a dead friend or reveling in the lustful music of insects, Ras's poems poke into unlikely nooks and invented crannies, uncovering questions that matter to everyone-how to laugh, how to hope, how to love.
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Customer Reviews
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"I used to dream souls, puffed up and sighing"
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-03-24
BITE EVERY SORROW is a multihued book full of both a strange sadness and the glowing wonder of laughter. "If there are oceans to saddle/ if you could get there, catch the horse/ if you are holy, long enough/ the suger will be taken from your right hand." Ras writes. She provides the saddle, and if you are holy enough, it will certainly give you an exhilarating ride through the lush scenery of her soul.
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wonderful!
Rating (5)
Date: 1998-04-09
3 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Ras discribes everyday life as if it were all genuine feelings. Wonderful discriptive language that paints many bright colored pictures.
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by Cory Doctorow
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Tor Books (2003-02-01)
ISBN: 0765304368
EAN: 9780765304360
Dewy Decimal #: 813.6
Hardcover: 208 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: 091308003
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: ...no markings or highlighting...light shelf wear on cover
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.
Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now in the care of a network of volunteer "ad-hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.
Now, though, it seems the "ad hocs" are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself.
Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now it's war: war for the soul of the Magic Kingdom, a war of ever-shifting reputations, technical wizardry, and entirely unpredictable outcomes.
Bursting with cutting-edge speculation and human insight, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom reads like Neal Stephenson meets Nick Hornby: a coming-of-age romantic comedy and a kick-butt cybernetic tour de force.
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Customer Reviews
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childish, not childlike
Rating (1)
Date: 2008-10-16
The writing is imaginative, but incredibly childish and immature, and stretches out like a laundry list of the desires of an unpopular teenage boy. The conversations take place between what we're expected to believe are ultra-hip, super-cool people, but the dialog is so weak and strained it sounds like desperate teenage male ultra-nerd banter. The "romance" comes off as if the author has never had a serious relationship with a normal human female. Overall, although the world is large and unique, the characters and dialog are stereotypical of an immature, limited world view. I cannot recommend this book.
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I wanted to like this, I really did.
Rating (3)
Date: 2008-08-24
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
It's not very clever to be a book reviewer on the internets and confess that a Cory Doctorow novel kind of leaves me cold. I like Boing Boing as much as the next person. I often admire his work as a journalist. This was my first attempt to read one of his novels. So many people have recommended the books to me. I wish that I could have liked this more, I really do.
He gets right exactly what you expect that he would get right. He hits the big future world points of karma credits (Whuffie) instead of cash and life extension technology. He has the hacking of pop culture and alternate forms of social organization and all the other little touches that you will not be at all surprised to see. I wish very much that it had not read quite so much like a textbook projection of what life will be like after the Singularity comes, because that was pretty much exactly what the book felt like. Making a point, working it out.
Fair enough, but I missed characters that I could care about. And I really missed some heart to the thing. Charles Stross writes in a similar subject area and honestly his books are way messier than Down and Out. Still, I like them much better. I had the feeling as a reader that Doctorow liked his clever ideas much more than he liked his characters. I never warmed to any of them, and I never once cared what would happen. Too bad.
There are certainly going to be people who enjoy the novel. It is cleanly written and cleanly plotted. At 206 pages, you can read it and enjoy it without missing the soul too very much. I am curious to hear from others whether all his work is like this, or whether there are other books that I might enjoy more. Let me know.
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Good world
Rating (3)
Date: 2008-04-15
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I really enjoyed reading about the world the author has imagined. He explores some interesting problems, like, "If you didn't have to die, would you want to live forever?" and, "How important IS what other people think of you?" (In the world he has created, what other people think of you is everything.)
The character development left me a little cold. I was unclear as to why the narrator allowed things to end as they did.
All in all though, good, fun read, and neat world.
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High-potential near-future tale
Rating (3)
Date: 2008-03-17
Jules takes his ad-hoc job at Disney World seriously. In fact, he takes it so seriously he's murdered and when he comes back (in the Bitchen society everyone comes back--from backup copies loaded into clones) an alternate ad-hoc has taken over the Hall of Presidents and is threatening to move on Jules's precious Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Unfortunately for Jules, all of his ideas for stopping Debra from changing the way the rides work to focus on direct brain manipulation.
Due to a (coincidental?) defect, Jules's new clone is unable to connect to the network, leaving him without the ability to create a new backup. The doctors suggest terminating immediately before he loses more memories, but Jules can't make himself give up so much--especially when he's got to fight to keep Debra from destroying even more. But everything Jules does seems to lead to more trouble--and to a dismaying decline in his Whuffie (reputation points--which in the Bichen society are pretty much used for everything).
Author Cory Doctorow is playing with some intriguing ideas here. If immortality is available, if material things can be created free, if danger can be ignored because death simply means restarting from the last save point, how will the world change? The idea that reputation will mean more than money is not too big a stretch--after all, already a reputation can be worth money. Doctorow also draws from the 1960s 'teach-in' movement when students took over classrooms and attempted to teach real and relevant material, extending this notion, with embellishments from the free software movement, to a complete future world.
So, how's it all work. Well, there's a lot of potential here. I would have liked to see a bit more about how society manages itself when everything is based on Whuffie. How do dirty jobs get done? Doctorow states that the zero-Whuffie group gets along fine, but would they? Or would high-Whuffie people perhaps hunt them down (for the betterment of society? Or maybe just for fun), since low-Whuffie-types are clearly not worth the resources (you can certainly take their property, of course in the Bitchen society, there is no property). The larger problem is that it's hard to really put yourself in Jules's place. He doesn't really have evidence about who killed him and doesn't bother looking for it. He engages in more and more eratic behavior--explained perhaps by the clone-defect but still hard to identify with. I wanted to see why Jules thought Dan was so wonderful, wanted to feel the loss when Lil threw him out, wanted to understand why we cared about her parents--living or dead-head.
DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM is an interesting and thought-provoking read. It's certainly readable and even interesting. Maybe it's my problem that I thought it could be so much more.
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A Fanboy's Dream
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-02-20
I'll be honest. I'm a fanboy.
I've visited Walt Disney World many times since my first visit in 1982. Ever since my first visit, I've been a huge fan of the Haunted Mansion. That is exactly what pulled me into buying this book.
I have not read the book in a while, so no detailed review, but more of reflections here.
For starters, let's say that I'm not sure how I would like this future. Sure, it's a great future where we could actually be able to live in the Magic Kingdom? I know I would. I was the weird kid that always told his mother that he wanted to live in the Haunted Mansion (I'm not kidding). So, just the novelty of that is enough to draw me into the story. But a future where nobody ever really dies because we will make regular backups of our brains? I'm a bit lazy for that. Give me an immortality pill.
This does have some themes visited in recent movies, most notably the dead guy trying to find out who killed him. That's one of two major plots of the book -- the other being a war over the control of the Haunted Mansion.
That second plot point is what seemed to speak to me the most. I had been involved in the Haunted Mansion fan community for a while when this book was released. One thing is for certain: he knows its fans and the divisions that happen every time even the slightest thing is changed in the Mansion.
This is not a perfect book -- I found it to be a bit slow at times, so not quite a quick read, despite the length. But it did keep me engaged enough to go until the end.
Yes, the book has been freely available through the Creative Commons licensing, but just skip over the freeness and buy the real book.
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by Arnon Grunberg
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Nijgh & Ditmar (1997)
ISBN: 9038826818
EAN: 9789038826813
Unknown Binding: 300 pages
SKU: 092708018
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: ...no markings or highlighting...minor wear on cover
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by Raymond S Nelson
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Iowa State University Press (1979)
ISBN: 0813810256
EAN: 9780813810256
Unknown Binding: 83 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: 080307AEC01
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: ...no markings or highlighting...edge wear on cover......light shelf wear on cover...
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by Kitty Sewell
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Touchstone (2008-02-05)
ISBN: 1416539972
EAN: 9781416539971
Dewy Decimal #: 823.92
Hardcover: 352 pages
SKU: 031908AC16
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: ...no markings or highlighting.....dustjacket has minor wear...222
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Dear Doctor Woodruff, I hope you don't mind me writing to you.
I think I'm your daughter....
This international bestseller is a startlingly assured first novel of deception, ambiguity, and shattering revelations. At the height of his career, a British surgeon has found success in both the hospital and at home. He and his wife have everything they want out of life, except the child she longs for, the child Dr. Woodruff secretly believes he may never be ready to parent. Suddenly, the delicate equilibrium of their relationship is blown apart by the arrival of shocking news. Deep in the desolate sub-Arctic wilderness of Canada where Woodruff lived and worked years before, a woman claims he is the father of her thirteen-year-old twins. Woodruff knows it cannot be true -- but DNA tests don't lie. To make sense of the impossible, he must return to that frozen wilderness, where no rules and few laws apply. Leaving his shattered relationship behind, he finds that his well-guarded secrets have even deeper and more sinister layers. But the people he once knew in that godforsaken place guard secrets of their own, and no one -- least of all the ruthless woman at the dark core of this maelstrom -- will help him uncover the truth. The past quickly gains a stranglehold, threatening to unravel everything Woodruff has built -- his marriage, his career. And a man who has made one mistake may pay dearly for another -- and risk destroying his entire future.... - A Bertelsmann Book Club International Book of the Month
- A Literary Guild Main Selection
- Shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award
- Shortlisted for the Hay Festival Welsh Book of the Year
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Amazon.com Review
Kitty Sewell's Ice Trap starts with a bombshell. Dafydd Woodruff, who's desperately been trying to conceive a child with his wife, receives a letter: "Dear Doctor Woodruff, I hope you don't mind me writing to you. I think I'm your daughter..." Suddenly, a relatively innocent past takes over his present life, and that of his wife. It further develops that there isn't just a daughter; this purported "daughter" is actually one of twins, a girl and a boy. Deep in the remote, sub-arctic wilderness where Dafydd had worked 15 years earlier, these children were conceived and born to a woman for whom he felt little but animosity. She was--and still is at the time the novel takes place--head nurse in the hospital where Dafydd did a locum. He was running away from a tragic medical accident, and this distant area seemed like a good place to escape to. DNA tests are ordered immediately to clear Dafydd in his wife's eyes. The tests are positive, the marriage is very precarious, and Dafydd goes back to the Canadian wilderness to sort things out. What he finds there is complex and compelling. The surprises are not set-ups but develop organically, making the story believable. This is the extremely self-assured debut of a writer to watch. She has deftly created landscape, character, mood and suspense to bring her story to its snapper of a conclusion. --Valerie Ryan
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Customer Reviews
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Suspense yes, but for a different reason
Rating (2)
Date: 2008-11-03
I finished this book but only because I was really waiting for something big to happen. I am surprised by the number of good reviews for this book. Not that it was horrible I just didn't relate well to the way the book was written. The author's dialog in the storyline is jumpy, enough that I am back re-reading the previous paragraphs thinking I missed something only to find, no, that is just the style of writing. I personally found this book boring, too much filler. Just a bunch of little plots all thrown together in the end.
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Place, characters, and plot
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-09-22
Who could ask for more? An acute sense of place - you can feel the cold and the interiors that one is forced to seek. Characters that are neither hero nor villain (save one), who are doing the best they can - finely drawn, memorable, and consistent. A medical/legal/relational plot that keeps the reader engaged and eagerly turnng the next page. Other reviewers have given character and plot details. All I would add is that this book will keep you in pleasat suspense and wanting more - even feeling regretful when it ends.
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Ice Trap is good.
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-08-22
I found this to be unusual and an excellent read. I liked it so much I have recommended it to several people and purchased a copy for a gift.
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So here is my review!!!
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-08-21
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Despite seeing a number of critical reader's reviews about Ice Trap here on Amazon (and many very good ones too) I ordered it, because a friend recommended the novel to me with unbridled enthusiasm.
I can truly say that it's one of the most interesting novels I've read in a long time. It's marketed as a thriller, and I have a feeling that it's here the problem lies for both the author and her readers. The American market thinks of thrillers in terms of bloodshed, domestic violence, pedophilia and gruesome murders. Along comes the ubiquitous police detective/ investigative journalist/ forensic pathologist to cleverly sniff out the truth. The reader buys a thriller expecting to be thrilled to the point of the ridiculous on every page.
Well, Ice Trap is not about that. It's a totally different kind of thriller, where the characters are complex, most of them neither good nor bad, but real, and the setting draws you in so that you literally live in the cold harsh climate of Moose Creek. The suspense is subtle but insistent and the plot twists are truly ingenious.
I looked up the authors website and saw that Ice Trap has won prices and has been short-listed for a couple of prestigious awards in Europe. I can see why. Can't wait for Bloodprint, her next one!
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A truly expat experience
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-08-20
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed Kitty Sewell's first novel Ice Trap. I had been browsing in Barnes and Nobles and came across the "usual suspects" ie: books written by the same authors with nothing new and fresh except variations on a theme. I was really looking for something new and I found it! Ice Trap had all the elements of adventure, mystery and a diverse character population to satisfy this readers thirst for a new and interesting backdrop sprinkled with characters that don't conform to what we usually expect them to given their education and social standing.
This first novel is the true "expat" experience. It represents people no longer constrained by their own usual cultural and social mores and who fall into the extreme lower parts of themselves.
It was also interesting to taste a culture that few have ever read or witnessed. This was a really fun book to read and it begs for a sequel
Mark S.
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by Gene Wolfe
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Tor Books (2000-08-05)
ISBN: 0312873158
EAN: 9780312873158
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Hardcover: 384 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: 031508AC23
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: ...exlibrary copy in good condition with the usual markings etc...
More Product Infomation
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Gene Wolfe's In Green's Jungles is the second volume, after On Blue's Waters, of his ambitious SF trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun. It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest from his home on the planet Blue in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Now Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Horn recalls visiting the Whorl, the enormous spacecraft in orbit that brought the settlers from Urth, and going thence to the planet Green, home of the blood-drinking alien inhumi. There, he led a band of mercenary soldiers, answered to the name of Rajan, and later became the ruler of a city state. He has also encountered the mysterious aliens, the Neighbors, who once inhabited both Blue and Green. He remembers a visit to Nessus, on Urth. At some point, he died. His personality now seemingly inhabits a different body, so that even his sons do not recognize him. And people mistake him for Silk, to whom he now bears a remarkable resemblance. In Green's Jungles is Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, building toward a strange and seductive climax.
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Amazon.com Review
Gene Wolfe has stymied and delighted smart science fiction readers for years. His complex, multilayered narratives, untrustworthy narrators, and puzzle-box characters send those of us who like that sort of thing into paroxysms of thrilling speculation, re-reading, and just plain guessing what it all means. In Green's Jungles is the middle book of Wolfe's opus trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun (the first is On Blue's Waters). It is by no means necessary to start with his other series, The Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Long Sun, in order to enjoy what is most likely the final examination of the universe Wolfe has created. But critics and fans are mostly in agreement that they are best read in order, and that the Short Sun series is the best of an astonishing bunch. In Green's Jungles follows narrator Horn as he voyages to the planet Green (Blue's companion) and to the abandoned generational starship known as the Whorl in search of the godlike Patera Silk. As Horn recounts his adventures, his own identity becomes muddled, and we find out his interactions with the vampiric inhumi of Green and the strange alien Neighbors were deeper than we knew. In fact, Horn may not be himself at all anymore. Tantalizing story details drip slowly from Wolfe's pen: Through the ring a Neighbor saw him, and she came to him in his agony.... she said, "I cannot make you well again, and if I could you would still be in this place. I can do this for you, however, if you desire it. I can send your spirit into someone else, into someone whose own spirit is dying." So who is Horn? Has he become Patera Silk--it seems so, for people begin mistaking him for the heroic leader. Is he the warrior king Rajan, or is he something entirely new, formed by the strange places and people around him into a savior of worlds? Identity, love, and faith weave through the themes of In Green's Jungles, and Wolfe has added another masterpiece to a shelf full of them. --Therese Littleton
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Customer Reviews
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Here and there and back here again, but you're all different
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-06-02
I'm certainly glad I wasn't reading these as they came out or else I would have been very confused in trying to remember exactly what was going on. I don't think Wolfe writes series as much as a long sustained novel with defined breakpoints, thematic or otherwise, which makes reading the entire trilogy straight through a much easier prospect than over the period of a few years.
This is more pronounced here than in the previous Long Sun series, which while intricate, was nothing like this in terms of complexity. That narrative was mostly straightforward, ornate as it was, while here it bends and twists and redefines itself constantly by giving us new information and altering what we already knew. It follows the tone set by the first book, we still have Horn searching for Silk and we still have the first person narrative, we still have Blue and Green and the Whorl . . . and yet it's all gone different, like Wolfe said to everyone "Okay, you think you got the first book? That was just kid's stuff, now the real fun starts."
With Horn still narrating, things become much more elusive, even as he's telling you exactly what is going on. He's on Blue and then he's on Green and maybe he's not actually there but just thinking about it. He's starting to look like Silk or people start mistaking him for Silk or maybe he's switched bodies. The story starts to unfurl in multiple time periods at the same time, with the two parts echoing each other, Horn telling you what just happened and using that as a launching point to tell you what happened previously. The story swoops to certain points and dodges away at the last second before returning there later to deepen the significance of it. Identity becomes an open question, not just of Horn but it seems that every character starts to have more than one name and appearance, and with each change they are perceived differently, even if they haven't really changed.
Wolfe still has the sometimes frustrating (and exciting) habit of making you work for your revelations, with important events happening offscreen and the outlines of it being sketched later, sometimes much later, so that you have to be constantly putting small pieces together to make the bigger picture. And yet we probably won't get the largest picture until the next book is over, and even then it will probably take a sustained reread through everything if you want to have the hope of fitting it all together.
But as complex as it all is, Wolfe makes it work due to the precise and unhurried nature of his prose, the consistency of Horn's voice and the way he can make Green and Blue feel both real and dreamlike at the same time, how the shapeshifting feels more solid and right out of some buried myth, the legends always present and not simply made up. There's a level of thought behind this that is kind of staggering and drags you along with it, if you're willing to be dragged. I wish more SF was like this but not every book (I think my brain would get tired) because it just preserves how unique Wolfe is in the field and how unique a writer he is overall.
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Challenging--but as brilliant as it gets
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-08-23
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
(...)
The Book of the Short Sun will be one of the finest reading experiences of your life... if you can get through the thing. The difficulty in extracting those rewards out of the text is considerable and not to be lightly discounted. Reading these books will require supreme effort. Willing readers will have to be intensely interested with how individuals relate to historical and semi-mythical figures, religion, and their own personality as influenced by these themes. These books are about as far as you can get from the popular concept of "space opera" and thrilling, "page-turning" fiction. An analogy to Moby Dick is probably very appropriate as that work due to the very slow pacing, the introspection, and the great literary symbols stomping through the setting reified and alive. Any scholar of literature should be deeply fascinated by these books.
WHY YOU SHOULD PASS:
There is no shame in not reading these books. They are terribly difficult and an exercise in stamina though we feel most people should at least try once. If you have attempted Shakespeare and been turned back because of the language; if you have attempted Moby Dick or novels by Henry James only to be turned away by the lack of progression in the plot; if you have attempted James Joyce's Ulysses but been baffled by the interior monologue, then Short Sun is probably going to daunt you as well. But we feel the rewards of this book are equal to those giants in literature.
(...)
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Better than the first book!
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-03-15
Gene Wolfe can be a frustrating writer: his prose is often elliptical, his plots and characters unusual, his text obscure and dense. He's a master of indirectness: he'll leave out what for other writers would be "important plot points".In this second volumn of Book of the Short Sun, we spend most of our time *not* in Green's jungles, but the intersecting plots and deft, subtle interplay of the different characters leave us with both a clear picture of the main character's (Horn/Silk) time there. We get crumbling cities, in-human (and human) monsters and other trappings of, say, a good Burrough's Barsoom tale presented entirely as backstory to the current events in which the lead character has become embroiled. On Blue's Waters (the first volume) was a beautiful work, marred (I thought at the time) by the overly obscure ending. But this novel (a lot clearer to follow, with a more conventional linear story) actually improves the first book. I can't wait to read the final volume now...
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Fine -- but Lacking
Rating (3)
Date: 2004-03-02
In Green's Jungles covers Horn's second stop on his way home to the Lizard. Contrary to its title, the novel only barely touches on events, many of them major, that took place on Green. Most of the story focuses on a war between two neighboring cities. I found In Green's Jungles more difficult to enjoy than volume 1, and was often annoyed at Wolfe's unnecessary convolution of simple events. Moreover, the war between the cities, as well as most of the characters involved, seemed inconsequential. This induces the suspicion that the whole book might have been written to stretch a two-book story to trilogy length. Even so, it was a pleasure to read, and I highly recommend the entire series to SF fans who enjoy Wolfe's unique and puzzling style.
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Wolfe torments his readers
Rating (1)
Date: 2003-02-21
4 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
Mr Wolfe is a writer of powerful imagination, but he has a bad habit of leaving out the dramatically most important parts of his stories, tormenting his readers! Herein, he hops from the future to the present to the past, and back without warning, dwells on trivial detail while he omits most all major events in the stories, mixes short stories and nightmare visions into the "plot", so the bewildered reader has no idea what might be really going on. The reader has to work too hard.
The writing in the first part (of this last part of the ten plus book Sun series), "Blue" was comprehesible in comparison.
Where was the editor with the red pen?
If you want to save money, this book does not seem to be important to the plot line of the series and can be easily skipped. It reads as it were notes or an undeveloped plot outline.
The plot continues in "Return to the Whorl" you can safely bypass this.
Ultimately the concept (be forewarned, I give away the plot here) of one caracter morphing into another is quite clever, but this this book will leave you wondering what the heck you just read!
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(Larger Image)
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by Gene Wolfe
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Tor Books (2000-08-05)
ISBN: 0312873158
EAN: 9780312873158
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Hardcover: 384 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: 031508AC23
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: ...exlibrary copy in good condition with the usual markings etc...
More Product Infomation
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
Gene Wolfe's In Green's Jungles is the second volume, after On Blue's Waters, of his ambitious SF trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun. It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest from his home on the planet Blue in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Now Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Horn recalls visiting the Whorl, the enormous spacecraft in orbit that brought the settlers from Urth, and going thence to the planet Green, home of the blood-drinking alien inhumi. There, he led a band of mercenary soldiers, answered to the name of Rajan, and later became the ruler of a city state. He has also encountered the mysterious aliens, the Neighbors, who once inhabited both Blue and Green. He remembers a visit to Nessus, on Urth. At some point, he died. His personality now seemingly inhabits a different body, so that even his sons do not recognize him. And people mistake him for Silk, to whom he now bears a remarkable resemblance. In Green's Jungles is Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, building toward a strange and seductive climax.
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Amazon.com Review
Gene Wolfe has stymied and delighted smart science fiction readers for years. His complex, multilayered narratives, untrustworthy narrators, and puzzle-box characters send those of us who like that sort of thing into paroxysms of thrilling speculation, re-reading, and just plain guessing what it all means. In Green's Jungles is the middle book of Wolfe's opus trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun (the first is On Blue's Waters). It is by no means necessary to start with his other series, The Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Long Sun, in order to enjoy what is most likely the final examination of the universe Wolfe has created. But critics and fans are mostly in agreement that they are best read in order, and that the Short Sun series is the best of an astonishing bunch. In Green's Jungles follows narrator Horn as he voyages to the planet Green (Blue's companion) and to the abandoned generational starship known as the Whorl in search of the godlike Patera Silk. As Horn recounts his adventures, his own identity becomes muddled, and we find out his interactions with the vampiric inhumi of Green and the strange alien Neighbors were deeper than we knew. In fact, Horn may not be himself at all anymore. Tantalizing story details drip slowly from Wolfe's pen: Through the ring a Neighbor saw him, and she came to him in his agony.... she said, "I cannot make you well again, and if I could you would still be in this place. I can do this for you, however, if you desire it. I can send your spirit into someone else, into someone whose own spirit is dying." So who is Horn? Has he become Patera Silk--it seems so, for people begin mistaking him for the heroic leader. Is he the warrior king Rajan, or is he something entirely new, formed by the strange places and people around him into a savior of worlds? Identity, love, and faith weave through the themes of In Green's Jungles, and Wolfe has added another masterpiece to a shelf full of them. --Therese Littleton
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Customer Reviews
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Here and there and back here again, but you're all different
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-06-02
I'm certainly glad I wasn't reading these as they came out or else I would have been very confused in trying to remember exactly what was going on. I don't think Wolfe writes series as much as a long sustained novel with defined breakpoints, thematic or otherwise, which makes reading the entire trilogy straight through a much easier prospect than over the period of a few years.
This is more pronounced here than in the previous Long Sun series, which while intricate, was nothing like this in terms of complexity. That narrative was mostly straightforward, ornate as it was, while here it bends and twists and redefines itself constantly by giving us new information and altering what we already knew. It follows the tone set by the first book, we still have Horn searching for Silk and we still have the first person narrative, we still have Blue and Green and the Whorl . . . and yet it's all gone different, like Wolfe said to everyone "Okay, you think you got the first book? That was just kid's stuff, now the real fun starts."
With Horn still narrating, things become much more elusive, even as he's telling you exactly what is going on. He's on Blue and then he's on Green and maybe he's not actually there but just thinking about it. He's starting to look like Silk or people start mistaking him for Silk or maybe he's switched bodies. The story starts to unfurl in multiple time periods at the same time, with the two parts echoing each other, Horn telling you what just happened and using that as a launching point to tell you what happened previously. The story swoops to certain points and dodges away at the last second before returning there later to deepen the significance of it. Identity becomes an open question, not just of Horn but it seems that every character starts to have more than one name and appearance, and with each change they are perceived differently, even if they haven't really changed.
Wolfe still has the sometimes frustrating (and exciting) habit of making you work for your revelations, with important events happening offscreen and the outlines of it being sketched later, sometimes much later, so that you have to be constantly putting small pieces together to make the bigger picture. And yet we probably won't get the largest picture until the next book is over, and even then it will probably take a sustained reread through everything if you want to have the hope of fitting it all together.
But as complex as it all is, Wolfe makes it work due to the precise and unhurried nature of his prose, the consistency of Horn's voice and the way he can make Green and Blue feel both real and dreamlike at the same time, how the shapeshifting feels more solid and right out of some buried myth, the legends always present and not simply made up. There's a level of thought behind this that is kind of staggering and drags you along with it, if you're willing to be dragged. I wish more SF was like this but not every book (I think my brain would get tired) because it just preserves how unique Wolfe is in the field and how unique a writer he is overall.
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Challenging--but as brilliant as it gets
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-08-23
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
(...)
The Book of the Short Sun will be one of the finest reading experiences of your life... if you can get through the thing. The difficulty in extracting those rewards out of the text is considerable and not to be lightly discounted. Reading these books will require supreme effort. Willing readers will have to be intensely interested with how individuals relate to historical and semi-mythical figures, religion, and their own personality as influenced by these themes. These books are about as far as you can get from the popular concept of "space opera" and thrilling, "page-turning" fiction. An analogy to Moby Dick is probably very appropriate as that work due to the very slow pacing, the introspection, and the great literary symbols stomping through the setting reified and alive. Any scholar of literature should be deeply fascinated by these books.
WHY YOU SHOULD PASS:
There is no shame in not reading these books. They are terribly difficult and an exercise in stamina though we feel most people should at least try once. If you have attempted Shakespeare and been turned back because of the language; if you have attempted Moby Dick or novels by Henry James only to be turned away by the lack of progression in the plot; if you have attempted James Joyce's Ulysses but been baffled by the interior monologue, then Short Sun is probably going to daunt you as well. But we feel the rewards of this book are equal to those giants in literature.
(...)
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Better than the first book!
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-03-15
Gene Wolfe can be a frustrating writer: his prose is often elliptical, his plots and characters unusual, his text obscure and dense. He's a master of indirectness: he'll leave out what for other writers would be "important plot points".In this second volumn of Book of the Short Sun, we spend most of our time *not* in Green's jungles, but the intersecting plots and deft, subtle interplay of the different characters leave us with both a clear picture of the main character's (Horn/Silk) time there. We get crumbling cities, in-human (and human) monsters and other trappings of, say, a good Burrough's Barsoom tale presented entirely as backstory to the current events in which the lead character has become embroiled. On Blue's Waters (the first volume) was a beautiful work, marred (I thought at the time) by the overly obscure ending. But this novel (a lot clearer to follow, with a more conventional linear story) actually improves the first book. I can't wait to read the final volume now...
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Fine -- but Lacking
Rating (3)
Date: 2004-03-02
In Green's Jungles covers Horn's second stop on his way home to the Lizard. Contrary to its title, the novel only barely touches on events, many of them major, that took place on Green. Most of the story focuses on a war between two neighboring cities. I found In Green's Jungles more difficult to enjoy than volume 1, and was often annoyed at Wolfe's unnecessary convolution of simple events. Moreover, the war between the cities, as well as most of the characters involved, seemed inconsequential. This induces the suspicion that the whole book might have been written to stretch a two-book story to trilogy length. Even so, it was a pleasure to read, and I highly recommend the entire series to SF fans who enjoy Wolfe's unique and puzzling style.
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Wolfe torments his readers
Rating (1)
Date: 2003-02-21
4 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
Mr Wolfe is a writer of powerful imagination, but he has a bad habit of leaving out the dramatically most important parts of his stories, tormenting his readers! Herein, he hops from the future to the present to the past, and back without warning, dwells on trivial detail while he omits most all major events in the stories, mixes short stories and nightmare visions into the "plot", so the bewildered reader has no idea what might be really going on. The reader has to work too hard.
The writing in the first part (of this last part of the ten plus book Sun series), "Blue" was comprehesible in comparison.
Where was the editor with the red pen?
If you want to save money, this book does not seem to be important to the plot line of the series and can be easily skipped. It reads as it were notes or an undeveloped plot outline.
The plot continues in "Return to the Whorl" you can safely bypass this.
Ultimately the concept (be forewarned, I give away the plot here) of one caracter morphing into another is quite clever, but this this book will leave you wondering what the heck you just read!
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